It would appear that I am not such a hoopy frood as I have previously credited myself with being. On this trip I have lost two knives, and as I write this now (on the way South through Norway to Oslo) I am on my fourth towel. I know exactly where two of them are, and the third towel was in fact one I had been given in exchange for my second travel towel after leaving that at Maggie’s sauna. That third towel I left at Santi’s house in Jarvenpaa (of which, more later).
I don’t know how I’m doing it, it’s absurd.
My martini. With added pine cone, thanks to Myke.
The second knife I lost was lost on the second largest island in the Turku Archipelago. This island archipelago is (by some definitions) the largest… in the world. I stupidly threw it at a tree and lost it in the 8” deep undergrowth. That achieved, we set about mixing the Martinis, and watching Archer until it was time to retreat to our hammocks in order to escape the cloud of mosquitoes that gathered.
Crossing the islands of the Turku Archipelago is not as challenging as you would imagine crossing a multitude of islands could be. Each and every island is linked by a chain driven ferry – all of which are free, and shockingly efficient after the experience of the Caspian Ferry. Often it was the case that before we had switched our engine off, the ferry was already in motion!
Jon investigates one of the ferries in the bare few minutes we spent on it.
Through twisty, undulating forest roads, over bridges spanning between islands and roughly every 25 minutes a ferry to an island further away than a bridge would allow; it’s a beautiful, diverse and enthralling drive.
The weather let us down the following morning however, but not as badly as it could have done. Roughly half an hour after we had completely packed up camp and got back on the road to head back for Helsinki, the heavens opened. Biblical rain. The wipers would not go fast enough to let me see properly, effectively hiding the beauty around us. If that had opened up on us while we were still in our hammocks, mere mosquito nets would not have been enough; we would probably have drowned!
Me hammocking from the side of Harrison, on the largest Archipelago… in the world, taken from inside Myke’s hammock.
Arriving in Helsinki, we made for our accommodation for the night – the Stadion Hostel. Situated underneath the 1952 Olympic stadium, it makes a good central location from which to see the city. We wandered for a few hours taking it in, enjoying the varied busking across the city, from stripped down blues guitar with scratchy vocals to steel drummers, chanting ‘Kiitos! Kiitos!’ (Finnish for ‘Thanks’) Unusually enough for us, we meandered without stopping at a nice looking bar now and then, as prices are somewhat… petrifying.
We sat here in the shade for a little while, listening to the buskers on the steel drums, and eating our body weight in fresh peas from the pod.
In the center of the city is a Japanese restaurant called Kahvila Suomi. This is a tourist location in itself, having featured in the cult Japanese film Kamome Shokudo. I was unaware of this while we were sitting outside eating our first meal of sautéed reindeer, and I had several thoughts at this point. The first of which is that reindeer is pretty nice. It’s like lean, sweet, slightly gamey beef. Very palatable. The second thought was that I thought I was beginning to understand what Jon had mentioned a few times when talking about Korea and Japan – being a white guy sitting in the midst of an entirely Asian populace makes you feel like some kind of celebrity. I will admit to being slightly disappointed when Jon explained that they were not actually just taking photographs of the white guys sitting outside the Japanese restaurant.
Cult Japanese restaurant
The Stadion Hostel also a good base of operations from which to make a day trip to Estonia on the ferry. This, if you get the opportunity, is a very good idea. There are several options, but the one we chose was a 10:00 ferry, which sails out through the Kustaanmiekka Strait, past the Fortress of Suomenlina, with a sleeper ferry as the return trip – this is a good move because it gives you ~11hrs in Tallinn, and then a nice smooth night’s sleep – this was also a welcome departure from our experiences of sleeping on a boat on the Fikrat Emirov. The Fortress of Suomenlina is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a sprawling fortress built over six islands, built in 1748 to defend against Russian expansionism, by forestalling the possibility of beach-heads being acquired, and by being used as a secure weapons storage facility.
The Fortress of Suomenlina, as seen from a ferry through the Kustaanmiekka Strait.
Tallinn is a very clean city, with many medieval German/Teutonic style buildings of different colours brightening the small, winding streets and arches, and looking down from higher up in the city, many terracotta roofs creating a warm landscape to take in. We drank that evening in the country’s oldest public house, the Hell Hunt (which translates to ‘Friendly Wolf’) and ate that evening in the city’s oldest public house, the Karja Kelder. The meals were excellent, and if I were to say ‘generous’ in proportion, that would not be doing justice to the monumental haunch of meat that was parked in front of Jon. I don’t know about Myke, but I will admit to being jealous of that, compared to my noodles.
Two Unwise Men just chillin’ in Tallinn. Sorry. Once it occurred to me I couldn’t not use it.
Rooftops from a high point somewhere in Tallinn.
MEAT.
We had been told, by our brief but beloved companion in St. Petersburg, Holly, that there was a rave in an abandoned Soviet prison on the waterfront in Tallinn that night. Our schedule did not, unfortunately, allow us to stay long enough to find out exactly what that looks and sounds like, but we did manage to inadvertently find the venue whilst wandering around Tallinn. We parked our backsides on deckchairs and sat in the gorgeous sun for a good two hours, drinking cider whilst looking out across the bay through a chainlink fence topped with razor wire.
Shady character…
A tall ship leaving the bay as we sat in the derelict prison and drank cider.
Despite everything being considerably cheaper in Estonia than Finland, and two of our chief objectives being to obtain an inflatable pool and enough beer to sustain us through the following day’s relaxing outing down the Vantaa river for the Helsinki kaljakellunta or Beer Floating, we abjectly failed to procure either.
Three Unwise Men 